Second Life and Virtual Worlds
Things about SL
The Third-Party Developers meeting was last Friday. The video is here: Second Life: Third Party Viewer meeting (27January 2017). 54 minutes.
Following is my summary of the video.
There are 2 project viewers in Lab’s pipeline. They are not yet published as RC viewers. Soon.
The Bento Project User Group has changed to the Bento Developers User Group. Discussion is about Bento problems being encountered.
I’m still a bit loopy recovering from pneumonia. I messed up the video of this meeting. Oops.
One of the problems is the BVH animation files. The SL viewer-server upload of BVH runs an animation optimization process. Movements smaller than a certain amount are removed. This is creating a problem for those animating the new facial bones. Small movements are needed for subtle facial expressions. The BVH process filters them out.
I haven’t updated the server/viewer information since week #1. Blame bacteria, I do.
This week the main channel got a server update. The RC channels run the same package, no new package.
I’ve been out of it with pneumonia, 103+ fevers, and some really messed up dreams. Just as the Lab was releasing Alex Ivy, the project name for the 64-bit version of the Linden viewer, I was getting sick. So, I’m just getting around to trying the new project viewer.
The download package is about 80MB. Firestorm releases are about 20MB larger.
You can download a copy here: Alternate Viewers.
Mesh development is shaking down into some common methods. This tutorial covers how to make Slink Nails using 2017 information. Section headings will give you an idea of what you can skip and what you need to read based on your experience level.
If you are totally new to Second Life™ there is a lot to learn. I am only touching on the parts needed to make nails for Slink Hands. Other brands of hands are similar.
In 2013 Linden Lab, owner of Second Life (SL), added a feature we call ‘mesh’. Prior to that all things in SL were made of primitives, shortened to ‘prims’. Technically everything in SL is a primitive and made of mesh.
What we call mesh is a particular type of primitive just as a cube or sphere is a specific kind of primitive. While everything in SL is made of mesh (press Ctrl-Shift-R to see it), we only refer to things made in Blender, 3D Max, Maya, and other modeling programs and then imported to SL as ‘mesh’, more convenient than rational. Linden Lab® added the mesh prim in 2013.
I wish you a Happy New Year!
The no change window has closed. The Lindens are coming back to work. Servers are being restarted and user groups are meeting. New users are erect and desperately or hopefully… let’s say gleefully shouting, “Wanna have some fun?” Shoppers are crowding the malls, combatants are stressing the sims with 12-rounds-per-second weapons, all while old timers snuggle in their skyboxes and merchants dream of L$.
I expect 2017 will see steady improvement of Second Life™ servers and viewers. There are no rumors of big changes or marvelous new features. Only rumors of… something… So, we will find out only as the year passes.
I suspect many of us will be distracted, for a time, by Sansar, as it opens to a larger and larger audience throughout 2017. The unknown is scary. Chicken Little will tell us again that Second Life is falling. I expect Sansar to repeat the SL development story. SL started out as a platform form for developing 3D web content. Hopefully the Lab has learned from the problems SL ran into and will avoid the big mistakes. Expect new ones. Only rime will allow us to see how it works out for Sansar and SL.